


Vignette - The First Epiphany

by leaper182



Series: Forged [7]
Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-15
Updated: 2008-05-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 10:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5001004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leaper182/pseuds/leaper182
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry gets more than he bargained for when he defends a lady's honor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vignette - The First Epiphany

**Author's Note:**

> A warm thank you goes out to shiplizard and beachkid for their beta-reading, encouragement, and questions. I wouldn't have been able to make it without their patience and awesomeness. Thank you, guys!
> 
> (And yes, apparently this was meant to be posted after The First Heart-to-Heart. I had a moment where I was confused too, when I was importing it.)
> 
> Originally posted May 15, 2008.

"Hey, baby, how about you and me find someplace a little more... private?" a drunk asked, the target of his affections a waitress, who winced when he tried to paw at her.

During the course of my travels over the past four years, I've ended up in all kinds of places. Restaurants, pubs, bars, local dives, and more dining rooms than I'd ever expected. Unfortunately, I hadn't made friends in Phoenix, Arizona, so the cheapest place that I'd been able to find where I could grab some dinner was a dive where the wood paneling looked stained with cigarette smoke, the mirrors were dirty, and there was a knot of men in one corner, drinking and laughing loudly. I'd been watching them eye the slender waitress, a woman who couldn't have been more than her mid-twenties, but when a large hand had reached out and swatted her rear end, I couldn't take it anymore.

Say what you want about me, but I treat women like ladies. I like pulling out chairs for them, giving compliments, paying for dinner, that sort of thing. I'm probably a throwback in this day and age, but I don't mind. I do mind, however, when someone takes it into their head to treat a woman like a piece of meat. Given the group's behavior since I'd sat down at a table far from the bar to eat some buffalo wings, I felt that maybe it was time to teach these clowns a lesson in treating a lady with the proper respect.

"Leave her alone," my mouth said on auto-pilot.

"'Scuse me?" came the man's voice again. When I lifted my head to look at him, I saw that he was burly, wearing a leather jacket, a stained T-shirt, and well-worn jeans. A bright blue bandanna covered his head, though I could see wisps of dark hair.

"You're excused," I replied, smiling. I got up from my chair, feeling tension coil in my stomach, ready to spring. I glanced down to make sure my staff was still resting on top of my foot.

The man's face reddened, and he brought up both hands to crack his knuckles menacingly. "I'm going to pretend that you didn't just say that, kid. I'm also going to give you the chance to get out of my bar while your legs still work."

"Gee, that's gracious of you," I grinned at him. Tough guys tend to get more pissed off when people smile at them than when people snarl back. "But I kinda like this bar. It's got that cozy feel to it, where everybody knows your name."

The biker's eyes narrowed, and as I watched, three more guys stood up from the corner they'd been sitting in for most of the night, all of them wearing identical leather jackets and menacing expressions.

One on one, I might have had a chance to take Bandanna Biker on, but four on one was enough to make even me pause.

"Mike," the guy snapped from behind the bar. "If you're going to fight, take it outside."

Bandanna Biker stopped for a moment, and then turned to the bartender and nodded once. "Sure thing." He turned to me, and bowed mockingly, using one hand to gesture me outside. "After _you_ , sir."

I picked up my beer and took a long pull to cover a nervous swallow, and nodded. "It's rare to find quality creeps these days."

Mike's eyes narrowed, but he didn't stop smiling. One of the guys who'd been coming to play back-up for him split off from the group and went out the front door. Another hung back, lingering near the restrooms. The second stood next to Mike, glaring at me behind a cloud of grizzled grey beard.

"You're going to find out just how quality we are," Mike growled.

As fast as I could, I kicked up my staff, catching it in my right hand and jabbing the end between us. "You don't know who you're messing with."

Greybeard snorted through his nose, and Mike laughed, low and dangerous. "Outside, kid. Or do you want to have to pay for the mess when we break you all over the furniture?"

The furniture. Crap. Being inside gave them more projectiles to throw at me, and more things to hit me with. If we were outside, I could get bounced around between some cars and their bikes, but I'd have a better chance of escape. I nodded, and then made my way to the door slowly, not turning my back on either of them.

When I made it outside, the sharp December air hit my lungs, giving me a surge of hope for a second before Biker #3 decided to make an appearance, fixing some brass knuckles to his right hand with slow, meticulous attention. Mike and Greybeard followed me outside, and were staring at me like wolves staring at a particularly juicy deer. I swallowed, and felt myself get angry.

I don't do well when I'm scared. When something scary happens, people have the fight-or-flight response to the adrenaline pumping in their system. Me, I just want to pummel whatever the hell that's scaring me in the first place. And considering that I was facing down three bikers that looked like they'd caused their fair share of bar fights, I was in trouble.

Quasi-Latin jumped into my head, and before I could stop myself, I shouted, " _Forzare!_ " at the one who'd been covering the entrance. Unseen force rushed out of the end of my staff, slamming into the guy and throwing him hard against the brick wall of the bar. He bounced off and then landed on the concrete in a crumpled heap.

Mike and Greybeard saw what happened, and then turned back to me, their eyes glittering dangerously.

I blinked, and took a few more steps back from them. When people saw magic first-hand, they usually panicked and ran like hell, their instincts warning them not to mess with me because if I could throw people around like sacks of potatoes, I could probably do worse to them. It was usually a good opening gambit, but this time, it backfired.

Mike and Greybeard looked _pissed._

My mouth going dry, I ran like hell, heading for the back of the bar. I wish I could say that I did it because the closer quarters would mean that they'd have trouble getting to me, but I'd just plain panicked, and I didn't want them catching me. Rule number one of combat wizardry is not to let them touch you. Considering how big Greybeard's meaty paws looked, I didn't want to know first-hand what they felt like around my neck.

I darted around the building to the narrow back alley, the bare lightbulb over the back entrance flaring as I approached, and then exploding in a miniature explosion of hot glass and filament. I held my shield up over my head, running hard and fast until I hit a dead-end. And then heard something that sounded like metal scraping on concrete.

I turned around to see Mike, half in shadow, holding a long piece of rebar in one hand. He had dragged it on the ground, but now he was hefting it in his hands, like a long, metal riding crop. "Take a wrong turn, freakshow?"

"I never did get that merit badge in Cub Scouts," I returned, sounding more confident than I felt. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't see Greybeard.

"You're going to wish you were still _in_ Cub Scouts," Mike growled, moving forward.

"Back up, Mike," I snapped, lifting my staff and backing away from him, step for step. "If I could do that to your buddy, guess what I can do to you."

I could see Mike's smile in a flash of streetlight. "If you were going to do something, you'd've done it by now."

Suddenly, a door swung open, slamming into me and knocking me off-balance. My hands tightened on my staff reflexively, and then there were hands on me, punching and grabbing.

I snarled, concentrating on my shield bracelet, and was relieved to see hands bouncing off the shield with pale blue sparks. When the hands disappeared, I surged forward, shouting, " _Vento servitas!_ " while aiming at one guy's legs. I heard a yelp, and then he abruptly landed on his ass, his legs swept out from under him.

Something metal hit me upside the head, and I quickly lost track of which way was up. My back hit the ground, and there were more voices, drowning out the injured man's howls as heavy boots laid into my chest and sides. One foot kicked my staff out of my grip, the sound of wood clattering on concrete almost deafening in my ears as my best line of defense skittered out of my reach. I tried to curl up into a ball, but one boot caught the back of my head hard enough to make me see stars. I tried to concentrate and activate my shield bracelet again, but the pain was too much, and there was more kicking.

My vision swam, and I closed my eyes, praying that it would be over soon.

I thought I heard some shouts and more voices, but when darkness came, I welcomed it.

***

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself still laying where I'd fallen, my cheek mashed into the concrete. My body was aching, but I shoved aside the pain as best I could and slid my arms under me as best I could. Pain shot through my right arm when I pushed myself up, forcing a gasp out of me as I tried to get upright. My head swam, and for a moment, bright spots flashed in front of my eyes before the blue-black of total darkness took over.

I laid my head back down gingerly, curled up into a gangly ball, and closed my eyes, concentrating on breathing. In and out, in and out.

I could have died.

It was a sobering thought, and one that I couldn't shove aside. My attention zeroed in on it, and the pain in my body slowly left me alone for a little while.

I could have died, and all I wanted in the world right now was to see Bob's face again.

I tried not to think about how beat-up I was -- I must have looked like a nightmare -- but there was Bob's face in my mind's eye, watching me, worried and concerned.

"Isn't it time that you went home, Harry?" my vision asked me gently.

Nope. Couldn't. If I'd had the energy, I would've shaken my head. Every time I was there, it was an exercise in torture. Bob talking and smiling and laughing and so earnest. Handsome, untouchable, unreachable.

"And this is any better? Running from your problems won't make them go away."

No, it wouldn't, but not having to stare my problem in the face day in and day out was easier to deal with.

"You could have died just now."

Yeah, I could have. But I hadn't. I hadn't, and I could keep going.

"Emotions are fluid. They can change direction, deepen, diminish..."

This was stuff I already knew. Bob had told me as much when I'd tried to make that stupid potion seven years ago. I tried to lever myself off the ground, but my arm complained and I let myself sink back down.

"Do you want to stop being in love with him? It's the only way that it's going to stop feeling like this."

The question made me freeze. Did I want it to stop? Did I want to look at him and not feel my heart hammer in my chest, my breath to come up short, my mouth go dry? Did I want to look at him like a friend?

Throughout my life, I haven't had a lot of people to love. Mom died when I was three, Dad died in front of me when I was eleven. When I was growing up, Uncle Justin had felt so far away that he could have been just as dead as my parents, and it wouldn't make any difference. Ebenezar was a friend, sure, but there wasn't that bond between us. We shared company and space, but there was that indefinable something that I couldn't say and that he didn't ask about.

No, I thought to myself. I don't want to look at Bob like a friend. Stars and stones, I _wanted_ to feel light-headed and stupid around him. I _wanted_ to sneak glances at his hands when he lectured. I wanted to wrap that feeling around me like a warm blanket and rub my face in it like a puppy with a soft sweater.

The only thing I didn't want was to risk that, one day, he might notice, and tell me out loud that he didn't feel the same way. I knew he didn't, but as long as he didn't say the words, it was easier to handle somehow. He wouldn't worry about censoring himself, worrying that he might say something that would give me the wrong impression. Bob would still be Bob with me, and I wanted that more than anything.

It was still wrong, though. I was in love with him, but the secrecy of it bothered me. The last time I was home, we talked for hours, and all I could think of was how his hands would feel on my skin, how his lips would taste when I kissed him. How would he feel if it were to come out that I'd been in love with him all this time, and I couldn't stop thinking about him? That he'd been a part of my fantasies, no matter how hard I'd tried to not think of him that way?

I could have died just now. I couldn't get away from the fact that I never would have been able to see Bob again, or hear him talk about something he loved, or see him smile. In the face of my own mortality, which wasn't as invincible as I would've liked to believe, weren't a few fantasies forgivable? Couldn't I be forgiven for wanting to be close to him?

But it wasn't fair to him. He didn't need to be the sex object in his former student's fantasies. He didn't need to have someone who just sat there and watched him.

"Do you think your running away is fair to _him_? You know he misses you. He's been upset that you haven't written and tried to keep in touch."

That wasn't the same.

"How so? You've run to the ends of the earth and back, and you've never been able to escape this. He misses you terribly, and he has no idea why you're doing this, what you're running from. He wants to help, but how can he? He's a ghost, trapped in a skull, for the rest of eternity."

I was about to snap a response back, but I stopped myself. What _was_ the point of running? I wanted to be right next to him, and here I was, running in the opposite direction. Why not go back? I'm in love with him. I know that. I've known that since the first time I went home, and saw him. He hasn't shown that he's figured it out, and all I'm doing is making myself miserable about this. Isn't love something to be cherished?

 _"Love, in whatever form it comes in, is something that should be cherished."_ Bob had said. _"Tuck away your feelings close to your heart, if you must, but perhaps in time, things won't seem so hopeless."_

I hadn't been tucking my feelings away. I'd just been holding onto them with both hands, hoping that no one noticed me acting weird. Wonderful.

I closed my eyes and concentrated.

My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. I am a wizard who has been traveling for the past four years in search of knowledge.

I breathed in and out slowly, feeling my head start to throb again.

I'm in love with Hrothbert of Bainbridge. I know this. I accept this. I don't want my feelings to change, but I don't want them to become public.

And for the first time since I turned 21, I could feel the tight knot of panic that had been hovering somewhere deep in my mind start to unclench. I continued through my mantra again, and each time I did, the panic eased and floated away. It didn't leave entirely, but what used to be a fire under my feet to get me moving was a slow burn that reached deep inside me and warmed me.

I was in love, and it was okay. It was more than okay. It was wonderful.

It took a few tries, but I got myself upright, found my staff where it had skidded away under a dumpster, and hobbled away as best I could.


End file.
